The patients' relatives were left to look after them; there were not enough nurses to care, and now the NHS is accused of presiding over a series of needless deaths.

It may sound familiar: last week the devastating report into Stafford Hospital laid bare the scandal of how a part of the health service simply stopped caring.

But in fact, these are the accusations which are now being made against University Hospitals Bristol Foundation trust, for what a group of families say are failures to care for already ill babies or young children.

That is comes so soon after the findings of the £13 million public inquiry by Robert Francis QC into the failings at Stafford must raise a series of difficult questions at every level in the NHS.

In his report, Mr Francis outlined how the hospital put "corporate self-interest and cost control ahead of patients and their safety".

Hundreds more patients died than would have been expected, many left hungry and lying in urine-soaked sheets, some so thirsty they were forced to drink from vases.

Yet the allegations disclosed today about Bristol have uncanny parallels to Stafford.

In Stafford, many of the failings occurred after swingeing cuts to the number of nurses on the wards, which continued for years, as NHS managers became "obsessed" with targets and foundation status.

Staffing numbers were pared to the bone. At one point, there were just two nurses for one floor of the hospital.

Today, the heart unit at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children is facing legal action over at least 10 cases in which children suffering from heart problems died or were left severely damaged following alleged blunders and neglect since 2008.

Children's cardiac surgery is one of the most complex areas of medicine. Surgeons operate on children with rare conditions, and carry out procedures on babies whose hearts are tiny.

Even with the very best care, some children will die from procedures which attempt to save them. But in many of the legal cases, bereaved families believe that shortages of nurses resulted in critical failings in the care of their children.

Parents told how wards were so short-staffed that they were forced to take over most of the care of desperately sick children recovering from surgery.

As with Stafford, many of the allegations do not relate to errors during operations, but to failings and lack of compassion in the most basic treatment of the most vulnerable.

In some of the most devastating cases in Bristol, parents who pleaded for care said nurses ignored alarms which indicated a worsening in their child's condition - and even lowered the thresholds, so they were less likely to be activated.

A young mother described how even in intensive care, her 10 month old baby was left in dirty nappies, and covered in vomit. When her son was transferred to the cardiac recovery ward, there were so few nurses on hand that she ended up providing most of his care, she said.

A one week old baby died last August, after being fed a day's worth of food in an hour.

The distraught mother of Maisie Waters told an inquest that nurses were "talking, laughing and joking and paid no attention to the task in hand" as they prepared food for babies in the intensive care unit.

Last week, Mr Francis' report condemned the NHS system of regulation which is supposed to protect patients, as relying far too heavily on paperwork, and not enough "physical inspection" of hospitals, to ensure they were providing safe care.

He called for a total overhaul of the system, and the Prime Minister said the Government would start by appointing a chief inspector for hospitals.

Bereaved parents whose babies died in Bristol last year told the Sunday Telegraph they had no confidence in current systems, which had failed to protect their children when they were alive - or to act swiftly on warnings after their deaths.

Two couples from Wiltshire and Cardiff told how they pleaded with regulators to inspect the hospital, and to see for themselves the danger being posed to young patients, when their sons after failing to be properly monitored.

When inspectors did so, they found that the ward on which the failings are alleged was dangerously short of nurses.

The CQC issued a warning notice, which said that there were simply not enough staff to "keep people safe".

It found that the ward in which both boys were treated had one nurse for every four children, the same as a general children's ward - even though it treated "high dependency" patients transferred from intensive care, who should have one nurse between two children.

In the Stafford inquiry, Mr Francis heard about the efforts of trust managers to ensure that targets were hit, regardless of the risk to patients.

When University Hospitals Bristol Foundation trust was warned in October that its staff shortages were so bad that the trust could be prosecuted, it applied creative thinking to the problem.

Incredibly, rather than increase the number of staff, the trust reduced the number of children it is accepting for heart surgery - meaning there are now up to 12 children in the cardiac recovery ward, instead of 16.

That change satisfied the regulators, which declared the trust "compliant" with its standards, less than two months after the alarm had been sounded.

The fact that children were being denied operations they needed did not appear to be considered by CQC. Nor did the regulator "consider clinical outcomes" for children treated on the ward during its inspections.

When the families' lack of confidence in the system of regulation was raised with CQC, a spokesman said their visit to the ward was a direct result of the concerns raised by the families, but that other parts of the hospital had been visited three times in the previous two years.

In the Stafford Hospital inquiry, witnesses questioned how it could be that so much information had been collected documenting problems at the trust, without action being taken.

In Bristol, reviews of the recent child deaths disclose that "low and unsafe" nurse staffing levels were identified on Ward 32 - the ward in which many of the failings in care are alleged to have occurred - were identified in October 2010, a full two years before CQC issued its warning.

And there is a yet more troubling question raised by today's fresh allegations of an NHS which is not doing enough to care.

Bristol's children's cardiac unit was in fact at the centre of a £14 million inquiry in 2001, which was seen at the time as just as much a landmark as the Francis report.

The children's cardiac unit, then based at the Bristol Royal Infirmary, had been dubbed "the killing fields" after dozens of babies and children died, following operations by surgeons who were not skilled enough.

One of the chief recommendations of the inquiry, by Professor, now Sir Ian Kennedy, was for a centralisation of centres performing such procedures.

Each must carry out a minimum number of operations, he said, so that surgeons at every unit had enough specialist and knowledge and experience to safely operate.

Twelve years on, the key proposal to protect children undergoing surgery has yet to be implemented.

Parents of desperately poorly children continue to put their trust in England's 10 specialist surgery centres - not knowing whether years of delays and wrangling over the plans will increase the risks for their own child.

It was not until last year that plans to close three units and expand services at seven others - including Bristol - were finally proposed. Now, amid a backlash from local campaign groups and MPs, Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary has referred the proposals to an independent panel, which is due to rule on them next month.

Even before then, the plans could go back to square one; tomorrow a judicial review will hear a challenge from campaigners in Leeds fighting to keep their unit, who say the decision-making process has been flawed.

Under the current proposals, each centre would carry out at least 400 operations a year.

Even before Bristol restricted its surgery programme, it was among the four children's cardiac surgery units carrying out the fewest procedures, with less than 280 operations a year. Last night, the trust refused to say how many operations it is now carrying out. The restrictions, introduced in November, are expected to remain in place until April, as the hospital attempts to recruit more nurses.

As ministers consider 290 recommendations made by Mr Francis, those with long memories will recall that all too similar proposals - a code of conduct for managers, to prevent those who preside over failure from being appointed elsewhere; better use of warning signals to spot poor care; a "duty of candour" to be placed on all health professionals - were demanded by the 2001 inquiry, to no avail.

The legal cases in Bristol involve young children who died after being let down in ways which are difficult to contemplate in a civilised society.

That such failings occurred in the very place which triggered promises of fundamental reform surely casts a dark shadow over the future of the NHS.